"The days are just packed"

(in the immortal words of Calvin and Hobbes)

Now Playing: "Concerto for Violin and Orchestra", by Samuel Barber.

This morning after breakfast I helped out with some little chores: sweeping up grass clippings around the sidewalk, packing, etc. I spent three hours cleaning at Mrs. B's house, and returned home in time to watch the end of "The Fellowship of the Ring" with everyone over lunch.

After lunch, I finished packing, read an issue of the "Smithsonian" (sent to me by my grandmother), and generally just relaxed. Philip and I went out for ice cream at Braum's. We sat in the booth and talked for an hour-and-a-half over cups of peanut butter-and-chocolate ice cream. A most pleasant time: praying together, discussing our devotions, sharing funny stories from our mission trips, talking about Crooked Creek next week. A grizzled woman mopped the tile floor nearby, and someone sat down at the booth behind us with a steaming plate of fried meat and mashed potatoes.

When we left the restaurant, I gave a gasp of delight: a wall of clouds had swept up suddenly and covered the eastern sky. Grey as kites' wings, like a sudden forest of silver trees in the wind. Philip and I drove to Wal-Mart, where he bought a pair of khaki shorts, then to Staples so that he could buy some pink Sharpies for the two Irish girls on his mission team. They're at Whitelake camp in the northeast. Our quest for Sharpies was unsuccessful, so we rushed to make it to the Post Office in time for Philip to mail his package to the girls. Philip plastered the package, sealing it with masking tape in the car. The man who took his package at the desk asked, "Anything perishable? Liquid? Breakable?" "No," Philip said. "You sure? Masking tape is the worst stuff to put on a package." "It's the only thing I had," Philip laughed. "Ok. I'll do you a favor, since it's Friday," the man said, and efficiently wrapped a couple of lengths of clear packing tape around the package.

We listened to Natalie MacMaster on the drive home. Philip told me about MTC. Sam is going into machining this fall. Philip said that if they were to work at a factory, he would be the conceptual designer (he's in pre-engineering), and Sam would be the one who actually carried out the design on the machines.

At home, I saved tracks onto my MP3 player for the trip to Crooked Creek tomorrow. My father fixed spaghetti for supper, and my mother cut up a wonderful sweet bell pepper. Mandy sprawled on the floor by my mother's chair during the meal, her eyes half-shut, her whiskers drooping luxuriously. After supper came our usual "Three Stooges" session: an extremely ridiculous short in which the heroes of the film build an airplane, the "Buzzard", and promptly crash it.

I curled up on my bed to finish my "Smithsonian" (an article about Jean Laffite, a pirate, and the War of 1812), but the sense of contentment was too deep. All the little noises of the house around me: the clink as Laura set her hairbrush down on the bathroom counter, the gurgle of water while Stephen took a shower, the sweeping chords of a heartbreaking piece that Philip was playing on the piano downstairs, the distant rattle of silverware as my parents washed dishes and put away the food in the kitchen. Cicadas rasp outside. The evening is dim, the silver maple leaves silhouetted like the veining of a cathedral ceiling against the grey sky.

We're off to Iowa for family camp tomorrow. Sarah is coming with us. We'll be gone for a week, from tomorrow to next Saturday.

God bless!